DALLAS — Texas athletic director Mike Perrin said Friday he has not wavered in his support of football coach Charlie Strong after back-to-back losses by the Longhorns, and said there is no set threshold of victories Strong needs to reach to keep his job.

“I don’t have a magic number of wins, of yardage, of honors — I don’t have it,” Perrin said. “I want to see an improved program from top to bottom.”

Speaking to a small group of reporters the day before the Longhorns were set to face No. 20 Oklahoma in what might be a pivotal game for the program, Perrin said he was “not real happy” with the way Strong’s defense and special teams played in back-to-back losses to California and Oklahoma State.

But Perrin insisted he remains upbeat about the state of the program.

“I haven’t given up on our football team or any aspect of it,” Perrin said. “I believe in our players, and I believe in our coaches.”

Perrin, who was appointed on an interim basis after Steve Patterson was fired last fall and later agreed to remain at his post without a contract through 2017-’18, took issue with the perception that is not a long-term athletic director.

“I certainly don’t feel like a placeholder,” Perrin said. “Nobody around the campus treats me like a placeholder. I don’t act like a placeholder. Until I’m told otherwise, I’m the men’s athletic director at the University of Texas.”

Asked if it will be his decision whether to bring Strong back for a fourth season, Perrin answered simply, “Yes.”

Strong, who has two seasons and more than $10 million remaining on his guaranteed contract after this season, has compiled a 13-16 record so far at UT. But Perrin, who played football for the Longhorns in the 1960s, said he remembers another UT coach going through a tough spell.

After the second week of the 1968 season, Darrell Royal was 0-1-1 after losing the final two games of the previous year. When Perrin and his teammates arrived at the stadium the next Monday, he said, there was an effigy of Royal hanging in the stands.

“They were screaming for his scalp,” Perrin said. “It was bad.”

But beginning the next week, Royal won his next 30 games in a row, including the 1969 national title and a share of the 1970 crown.

“I know things can turn,” Perrin said. “I’m not making a prediction. But I’ve seen them turn and I’ve felt them turn. We’ve got a situation where we’ve got players and coaches I support.”